Everyone's Favorite Hinge Joint

Hello all, I know there are other threads about knee breaking/eye gouging/throat punching, but I don't think I've seen this particular argument.

In the middle of an argument as to whether Jose Canseco, were he to train properly, could have won this MMA match he just lost, an old friend offered this:

...but attacks TO the knee (and groin) are [illegal in MMA], which is usually a larger opponent's biggest weakness when facing a smaller opponent. More weight above the knee means more weight vectoring sideways when you knock it out of alignment. The opponent's own body weight breaks his leg.

Basic physics lesson.

Find a full can of soda. Try to puncture it with your finger. No good? Now put the soda can on the ground and stand on it. Have two people on either of side of you to catch you so you don't fall. Now have somebody with fast hands poke the soda can with one finger. BOOM. It' collapses.

Initially, all your weight is pushing DOWN on the soda can. It's built to withstand force in that direction. BUT when you indent the side of the can now some of your weight is pushing down and some of it is being vectored sideways & down. The sides of the can are not made to take that kind of force, so it collapses under your weight.

The human knee works the same way. Knock it out of alignment, even slightly, and the body weight above the knee will do the rest of the work for you.

This little demo is a real eye opener for my students... especially the bigger ones. :) Professional bouncers are particularly disturbed by this revelation.

He's a hapkido black belt and has studied JKD, and I'm just a slob, but this seems wrong to me. For one thing, I happen to have a funny knee that pops out of alignment from time to time, and it's painful but I can walk on it.

Later, he added this:

Attacking the Knee isn't per se against the rules, but if some idiot locks his leg out and the other guys sees an opportunity and stomps it through, I'm guessing he's in deep ****. Ironically, all of these attacks listed as "fouls" are my favorites. Most of my attacks start with an eye strike followed up by a hit to the trachea then to the groin. Oh, and when he goes down... I kick or stomp the neck.

I don't know if the opportunistic knee smash tactic is a good MMA move, either, but anyway.

Can someone educate me as to this kicking-the-knee thing?

"You can be the biggest guy in the world -- you smash his knee, he's goin' down." -- Dalton

If by favorite moves he means the ones he prefers to employ himself (e.g. those illegal/foul moves he mentions), then ask him how he has properly trained to use those moves in a real situation.
Also ask him how he knows they work.

This will help reduce his credibility because you can't really practice these moves without seriously maiming/injuring/killing your training partner. Thus, unless he has a basement/backyard full of dead bodies, I doubt he has had the chance to practice these techniques which is why they are considered bullshido.

As for the knee strikes themselves, one recent occurrence was Vera v. Jardine. Vera got Jardine's knee pretty good, but it didn't win him the fight.

Tell him that knee kicks are not remotely against the rules, not would their likely be trouble for someone who broke someones leg considering how many knees have been damaged by heel hooks and the like over the years.

Moreover, point out that stomping and side kicks have been used repeatedly in competition by people who can kick an order of magnitude harder than him on some very big people and produced results that are nothing like what he is talking about. In fact, bog standard leg kicks have shown themselves to be more effective in actually damaging the knee joint.

Contrast this stomp onto the bum knee of a 220lb man, in which the recipient still went on to win the fight:

Tell your friend that he is painfully misinformed about a topic that he probably considers himself an expert in.
Also inform him that the internetz says he reminds them of exactly the kind of wanker that pisses them off the most IRL, that he most likely can't do half the **** that he thinks he can, and that I hope some thug beats him into a bloody paste and he eats through a straw for the next decade or so.

This will help reduce his credibility because you can't really practice these moves without seriously maiming/injuring/killing your training partner. Thus, unless he has a basement/backyard full of dead bodies, I doubt he has had the chance to practice these techniques which is why they are considered bullshido.

Understood, though he says he does train this stuff with eye protection. Here's an excerpt from the rest of the argument, after I stated that I'd bet on an MMA fighter who has used his techniques hundreds of times in matches and not on the RBSD guy who can't train his full technique:

But who would you bet on if the martial artist ALSO does ring fighting? What if the martial artist trains to deal with trained fighters? What if safety glasses are required during training and the students get their fair share of practicing eye strikes? What if in addition to ring fighting the martial artist practices a whole host of vastly more effective techniques that have been internalized that a MMA fighter wouldn't even think of using and is not adequately prepared to defend himself against? More than likely the MMA fighter has NEVER had an opportunity to even practice defending themselves against? I love when MMA guys try to grapple with a street fighter who claws out their eyes and bites out their jugular. Hey, wait, that's against the rules!

Just based on other threads I've read on Bullshido, I suspect that a competent BJJ guy would have ways of dealing with the jugular bite. But really, my followup question for the group is, these guys always say that they train these eyejab/throat punch moves and then they can't really fight in the ring because they will use those techniques intuitively. It's sort of the neurological version of "too deadly." I am familiar with the idea that people revert to their training, but this doesn't seem right. If a guy trains for MMA fighting, and also for self-defense as realistically as possible, his brain will be confused? I think people can compartmenalize and react appropriately to situations. But I don't really know that.

And thanks for those videos, thatrugbyguy. I can hardly look at that first clip.

But who would you bet on if the martial artist ALSO does ring fighting?

The fighter with the better record of actually winning competitive fights, because there’s evidence that he knows what he’s doing—regardless of what else he does at the gym.

What if safety glasses are required during training and the students get their fair share of practicing eye strikes?

Well, first, this means that they don’t really practice the appropriate motion since the distancing will be slightly off, and that they don’t really know whether it works, since anything you can’t apply full-contact in competition can’t be properly and repeatably tested. (I don’t dispute that eye strikes can be potentially disabling, but it needs to be a high-percentage technique.) I also question whether it’s a useful investment of time, compared to honing verifiable and verified skills. Why rely on gimmicks rather than basics—even if the gimmicks work?

My favoured response to “If you do your gay mount thing, I’ll just claw your eyes out”: “In BJJ, we call that technique ‘giving up your arm’, and the proper counter is a 180° armbar.”

I love when MMA guys try to grapple with a street fighter who claws out their eyes and bites out their jugular.

He makes this sound like a frequent occurrence. I would love to see the police reports.

Originally Posted by madrigan

Just based on other threads I've read on Bullshido, I suspect that a competent BJJ guy would have ways of dealing with the jugular bite.

Wooden stake through the heart.

Or, don’t put your throat right by the guy’s mouth. After all, BJJ is to a large part a game of positioning, and the most dominant positions—ones like top mount, back mount, or knee on belly—don’t expose you to this.

But really, my followup question for the group is, these guys always say that they train these eyejab/throat punch moves and then they can't really fight in the ring because they will use those techniques intuitively.

...Which means that the “What if we also do ring fighting?” argument falls by the wayside. It’s also unclear how eye protection allows them to train the d34dly throat punches. It’s also unclear why throat punches are so much better than plain old boxing punches to the button. Where was the thread where people shared their experiences of getting punched in the throat, and continuing the sparring/fight...?

Whenever these arguments come up, the guys who advocate the eye gouging and clawing usually only provide mystical anecdotal evidence (MY MASTER WAS INVOLVED IN HUNDREDS OF STREET FIGHTS!!!) or use incorrect assumptions on human autonomy.

For example, most consider these sorts of moves on par with a 1 hit KO, where a single eye gouge would end a fight. This is incorrect, and if anything, will probably lead to an escalation of a situation (e.g. if you eye gouge me in a street fight I will break your arm in return).

And it has been mentioned, but I must emphasize that training eye gouging with eye protection is not a substitute for actually doing it. There is no way to see how much pressure is needed or how your opponent reacts to it this way. Compare it to training with any other proven techniques.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest and had a bit to think about it, I've remembered another relevant point. Recently my Pl commander showed us a video of Col. Grossman (who probably knows a little more about preparing people for teh d3adly than most) giving a lecture on training people to deal with the psychological and physiological stressed of combat. In one of the examples he gave, an unnamed UFC fighter worked with them going through some of the force on force simunition scenarios they use to simulate the stress of combat. The fighter fumbled at first like almost everybody does, but he adapted much much faster than most people do. Grossman attributed this to the fighters acclimatization to h2h combat carrying over into the stresses of other combat situations.

Besides serving as a validation of the stress inoculation of boot camp, I think this also says something about the usefulness of combat/contact sports in preparing for fighting in general. While trying to train as close to real situations so that you don't develop bad habits is important, it is even more important to get used to dealing with the adrenaline and fear in general. The more you can access the rush of the fight or flight reaction without letting it overwhelm you and the more that your techniques/timing/footwork is ingrained the more that you will be able to actually keep your head and make tactical decisions rather than operating on blind instinct or panic.
I've noticed this in myself. The first few fights I got into as a kid I remember that I didn't think very clearly at all and the fear and/or anger led to me just reacting rightly or wrongly until I won or lost. I don't get into fights very often, but after I had played Rugby for a while, the contact level in Hockey went up, and I did some kickboxing sparring and I found myself in a couple more fights I noticed that something had changed. Partly I was just more skilled, but despite being in more dangerous situations, I was better able to think through my fear and make decisions while fighting. Obviously it was still scary, and the adrenaline was pumping as hard as ever, but having to deal with someone trying to hurt me or getting thumped upside the head a couple times wasn't as rattling an experience.
If my experiences could do that for me, then what do you think that hard MMA sparring or competing is going to do for someones presence of mind in a self-defense situation? Probably more than the decision to train eye gouges methinks.

His demo is not completely silly, but it must be pointed out that knees are not fluid-filled cylinders. Also, in his demo, he's striking a single support of much lower strength than the knee, at a time when the single support is completely supporting the full weight of the body. It's certainly possible to get hit in the knee at a moment when your full weight is focused on a straight knee with a planted foot, but the timing of it makes such a thing a low-percentage move for the simple reason that it doesn't actually happen very often at all.